Editor’s Note: This post is mostly in response to a lively conversation in the comments section of one of my other recent posts… on the strangeness of material “reality.” (click here to read that dialog between Liz Wagner and Les Harris)

In many contacts our spirit friends told us that public skepticism would present a major hurdle for ITC research… and in this contact, the Seven ethereals explained that most of that skepticism can be traced back to the separation of the physical mind with our higher spiritual self.

Technician:

“Fear of death is one of the most distressing concepts of human culture. It is based on the conscious belief that your bodily existence offers life and security, which it never wants to lose. Fear of death therefore is evidence of the mind having lost its roots. It shows a spiritual being who has far removed itself from its higher self.

“You owe this mentality largely to an intellectual and scientific way of thinking. It wants all thoughts reduced to a comprehensible level of material existence.

“The church also has many difficulties. These days, the churchgoer knows very little about heaven, hell and life after death. Indeed, a large number of them deny these things. Such skepticism which is most prevalent among those who are wise and worldly could easily influence and corrupt people of simple faith and pure heart.

“Heaven is in man and those who have heaven within themselves go to heaven. Heaven is in all those who recognize what is of God and let themselves be guided by the Divine. The priority and basic concern of every religion is the acknowledgement of God!”

Notes

Dear Liz and Les…

You mentioned your personal difficulties in reconciling these ITC contacts, so I decided to share my own experiences.

I struggled with the same doubts for the first couple of years of association with Maggy and Jules H-F. I remember during my first flight to Luxembourg I was reading a small stack of research reports of their work, which had been translated by Hans Heckmann for George Meek, and my mind was bouncing around:

For the first couple of years, I was switching constantly among amazement, doubt, and wishful thinking. Sometimes I’d be convinced, and my wife Regina would say it couldn’t be true. At other times I’d express doubts and Regina would say, “You know, there might be something to this.” That especially happened when she read some of the more esoteric messages from the finer beings like Technician. Regina had studied the Course in Miracles and was a frequent meditator, so most of that information resonated with her. It was the stories of the planet Marduk being the legendary Eden and source of humanity that got her eyes rolling. She’d say, “Don’t mention Marduk in your books, or people will dismiss it all as nonsense.”

Long story short, the more I became familiar with the Luxembourg researchers and their spirit friends, the more certain I became of their honesty and sincerity and the legitimacy of their claims.

Then I befriended bright, discerning scientists like German physicist Ernst Senkowski and Swedish psychiatrist Nils Jacobsen, who had worked closely with the couple and were firmly convinced it was for real.

But the most convincing evidence of all was provided by our spirit friends, who by then were becoming very close friends of mine. They were fully aware of the situation here—widespread religious beliefs and misconceptions, the imperceptibility of spiritual energies and realms, a Newtonian science that discounts all things spiritual, and the disinterest of the general public in these matters—all stirring up doubts and fears… even among researchers. So our spirit friends gave us good, solid evidence that would be hard to refute. You can access two articles presenting that evidence from this link:

In a nutshell, the best evidence came as a series of cross-contacts, in which similar pictures or similar messages were sent to two or more researchers in different countries at about the same time. In most cases those researchers were not collaborating with each other… in fact they were on unfriendly terms. Our spirit friends carefully choreographed those cross-contacts in large part to convince people that these were legitimate spirit contacts. Such things could not be faked… for example a picture coming through a computer in Luxembourg that wasn’t connected to the Internet, and at the same time through a TV in Germany that had no reception.

Once I acquired a Luminator, my own spirit group worked closely with me to get spirit faces appearing quite clearly on Polaroid film. I’d take pictures of people, and when the photo developed there would be faces of people who were not physically present. Those Polaroids, likewise, could not be faked.

So today I have no doubts whatsoever about the legitimacy of the ITC contacts I represent (my own, and those that my colleagues and I received during the years of INIT. (click here to see our INIT group). And I have the same certainty about the early contacts of the Luxembourg couple who I later (1994) helped in establishing INIT. Those early contacts are the subjects of the “ITC Gems” that I’m posting lately.

I realize, though, that my own certainty isn’t enough to convince a skeptical public. I remember a Canadian psychology professor who contacted me on several occasions, expressing what seemed to be a genuine interest and fascination with the ITC contacts I was reporting. Eventually he decided to set up some experiments to determine the legitimacy of technical spirit communication for himself. He started doing some EVP experiments under strict laboratory conditions, got no discernible voices, and then published a paper in a scientific journal, concluding that EVP and ITC are not for real. It was that sort of shallow investigation leading to conclusions that scientists wanted to hear… that finally slammed the science door for me… and I expect it will remain shut until modern science has awakened to spiritual existence. That could take many years.

Anyway, as you two suggest in your comments, there needs to be a general awakening within humanity at large in the coming years… not just for the sake of ITC but for the perpetuation of the species.

10 Responses to ITC Gem 9: Convincing a Skeptical Public

Mark:
Thank you so much for your wonderfully articulated response. I guess my doubts, which spring up periodically, stem from my sense of disappointment at the discontinuance of Timestream and then again this may point to its very validity for some incomprehensible (to me) reason.

Many peope will believe or disbelieve according to their own experiences and possibly their evolution. If something does not resonate with us we should ask questions and research what is said. Many times what is heard from someone we are not closely attached will seem improbable or impossible but it is always based on our own background, experiences and education. We really know of nothing to be absolute unless we have deemed it so. It is whether or not it resonates with our being. They say that the observer collapses the event. The trip to Absoluteville can only be reached through the mind.

When I first saw Mark Macy it was in Montreal. I had read his book Miracles in the Storm and felt that he must know. I did not know what he should know but I felt because he was an engineer rooted in science and still had these tremendous experiences he was probably some kind of authority on what is… . His speech was so unassuming that I felt like I was tricked by his book. I remember asking him at the conference a question as to what validity he had of some of the experiences he had encountered and he answered so unassuming that I felt like he is either hallucinating or this man has had some real experiences that alows him to speak with such confidence. I am glad I chose to believe he had the experiences because I was able to get a picture from his polaroid camera and the luminator that had a deceased relative in my picture the second time I saw him. That was the first time I had a picture taken. The next time I saw him in Atlanta, Ga. and had another picture taken and my daughter show up in the picture.

I am not sure why M. Macy is able to get these anomolous happenings but I have to listen to what he says for the time being because his connection is more than most everyday people and it has merit.

Hi B…
Thanks for the kind words!
Maybe I’ll see you in Montreal again next month?
I’ll be helping out there and presenting July 3-10…
Could be my last presentation. (I find it more effective getting the word out through my writing… For all intents and purposes I’ve already quit presenting… Montreal being the only exception because of the IIIHS folks, whom I love for their great work….)
Best regards.
Mark

Slamming the science door isn’t an option for me. The instance you quoted wasn’t science, it was the equivalent of pointing a telescope at random in the night sky then saying “I couldn’t see Jupiter, therefore Jupiter doesn’t exist.”

My interest in the possibility/probability of an existence of entities Beyond Here is influenced by the current thinking in particle physics and astronomy.

Not long ago, science was comfortable with the idea that an atom was a single, physical, indivisible piece of matter. The situation today is that reasonable theory holds that is not correct and that atoms are made up of a nucleus, protons, electrons, plus baryons, mesons, hadrons, quarks, leptons and similar – and that’s only the “particle” side of it. Then there is the “force” side, in which we find gluons, bosons, photons, gravitons and more remarkable things.

This is not a lecture in particle physics, it is an illustration of the difference between our knowledge of 100 years ago and our knowledge today and the lesson is we don’t know everything about everything.

Before getting back to EVP/ITC, let’s throw in a couple more current theories.

To explain the behaviour of much of the above particles and forces (many of which are still theoretical) it is proposed by very respected thinkers in this field that there must be other dimensions, not just the few that we can observe around us.

And what is EVP/ITC all about? It is the proposal that there must be other dimensions, not just the few that we can observe around us.

Now let’s throw in some more differences between what we “knew” 100 years ago and now. One hundred years ago, we believed that out local galaxy, the Milky Way, was in fact the entire Universe. We now know that it is just an average size galaxy in a local cluster of galaxies which itself is just an average size cluster.

And what does that tell us? It tells us once again that what we thought that we knew was hopelessly wrong – again!

But wait, there’s more . . .

It is now hypothesised that what we can observe around us and call the Universe isn’t the totality of the Universe at all. In fact, what we can observe around us is only about 10% of the Universe.

We now know that stars like our Sun, orbiting in galaxies like the Milky Way, are travelling so fast that they should be flung far out of the galaxy, never to return. On top of that, we now find that the Universe is expanding at a rate that cannot be accounted for by what we can observe around us.

The only way for this to be accounted for is the hypothesis that 90% of what we can observe around us must be made up of dark energy and dark matter.

What is the relevance of all this?

It is evident that “what we can observe around us” is a very long way short of the totality. Serious particle physics suggests that there must be other dimensions that we so far cannot observe. Serious astronomers suggest that 90% of the Universe is tied up in something that we so far cannot observe.

And this brings us back to the type of science that says “since I cannot see Jupiter in a randomly pointed telescope, therefore Jupiter does not exist”.

Science at times can be very good at shooting itself in the foot.

On the one hand, hypothetical particles, hypothetical forces, hypothetical dark matter, hypothetical dark energy and a host of hypothetical dimensions, none of which we can currently observe, are seriously considered.

On the other hand, EVP/ITC contact with entities which very likely involve the very same particles, forces, matter, energy and dimensions are dismissed out of hand by the same science, based on the “we can’t see it, therefore it doesn’t exist” lack of fundamental logic.

At various points in the history of science, a certain smugness has been evident and the scientists of the day comfortably claimed that absolutely everything is now known about absolutely everything. In the early days of science, it usually took more than a lifetime to prove that this was rubbish. Today, the rate of accumulation of knowledge is nearing exponential and proof that a comfortable “known” is rubbish can come in just a few years.

What does this mean for the few who are trying to make EVP/ITC more understandable? It means keep at it but be very mindful of the “Jupiter doesn’t exist” line of thinking – in other words, don’t allow yourself to fall into illogical thinking. Keep on collecting data, information and knowledge but be rigorous in logic and assessment.

Hey Les…
I have to admit my “slam the door on science” comment may be a bit of overreaction to the resistance science has shown toward ITC research and all things spiritual. I still subscribe to LiveScience…

There’s times when I can be a bit obscure . . . I did not finish with the conclusion that I intended.

All of the hypotheticals, including multiple dimensions, currently employed to explain observations of particles at the sub-atomic level and yet more hypotheticals employed to explain observations at the Universe level, do not engender a response of “that’s impossible” or “because I can’t see it, it can’t possibly exist”.

Researchers in the field of EVP/ITC are no less entitled to propose multiple dimensions to explain observations in this field.

This in no way differs from standard scientific progression. Something is observed and theories are constructed to try to account for the observation. Any theory is considered to be a valid possibility until it is POSITIVELY disproven. Disproven does NOT include “no, that’s impossible” or “I looked into my refrigerator and couldn’t see Jupiter, therefore Jupiter doesn’t exist.”

… for staying locked into Darwin’s theory of evolution (which precludes the presence on Earth of superior humans hundreds of millions of years ago) and into Newton’s mechanistic view of the world (which implies the nonexistence of all things spiritual). I continue to find lots of evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, I very much admire your approach and outlook toward science, and I appreciate the good comments you made on this site for several years,

I think the average sceptic has two problems. First there is believing in the concept of consciousness surviving bodily death, and secondly there is believing the evidence offered by human beings that this is the case.

I believe that it is the latter that is the killer.

This is why I post what can seem to be argumentative and suspicious posts on your website, because others are reading and if there is a ‘hole’ that I spot, then they will too, and it needs addressing.

(If anybody is interested I am a new ITC researcher, inspired by Mark and this website. From the first day I got communications from ‘my’ station (North American Station), and I wouldn’t say I believe, I would say I KNOW that we survive bodily death).

I am hesitant to agree that worldwide knowledge would actually be a good thing for us. I do not know that this would stop fights and wars as the causes wouldn’t have altogether been eliminated. I am worried that it could possibly make things worse, with people becoming carefree with their bodily life knowing they are eternal anyway.

But. These are not questions or worries for me, thankfully! And from what I understand, the seven wanted the truth to be told, right?